


Mind Control Over Matter

by ruff_ethereal



Category: Descendants (2015), Sky High (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Mind Controller!Evie, Past Child Abuse, Super Genius!Carlos, Super Speed!Chad, Telekinetic!Mal, Teleporter!Jay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruff_ethereal/pseuds/ruff_ethereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evie has always gotten her way--she was born beautiful, she was so nice and well-spoken people couldn't find it in themselves to distrust her, and she had her mind control powers, just for extra insurance. She's never met anyone that she couldn't control, and has always gotten her way, each and every single time.</p><p>Then she goes to Sky High and meets Mal, the telekinetic whose brain she just can't crack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this post by Rotten Four on tumblr: http://rottenfour.tumblr.com/post/132836767276/so-here-it-is-sky-high-au-before-you-ask-where

The art of controlling people's minds, hijacking their free will, and getting them to do your bidding is really more subtle, skilled, and elegant than people think it is.

In most shows and books that Evie has seen mind control happen, it's usually so forceful, so instantaneous, so incredibly obvious that the person has lost all control of their body and even their mind.

The reality is far less dramatic than that. She should know—she's been doing it all her life.

The first time Evie used her powers, she, like many kids, didn't even realize that she had been using them. Her nanny was adamant that little Evie be given a “healthy” snack in the form of carrot sticks, when all she really wanted was the last Boston cream doughnut in the fridge. She remembered the nursery rhymes and the shows she'd grown up with so far, and wished really, really, _really_ hard that her nanny would change her mind, and then it happened.

“Oh, what harm can one doughnut for snack time do? You've been such a good girl today, anyway!” Her nanny said as her hand strayed from the Tupperware full of carrot sticks and instead to the doughnut on the saucer.

Evie made sure to give an extra radiant smile and be especially enthusiastic with her thank yous, both for the doughnut and to make her nanny feel really good about herself—she rather liked it when her nanny smiled, considering how little her own mother did that.

It was later that Evie realized that it wasn't so much the power of _wishing_ that was getting people to do all the things she wanted, but rather her _own_ powers—powers she quickly learned that none of the other kids had.

She was careful with them. She'd watched Spiderman, remembered Uncle Ben's famous line, “With great power comes great responsibility.” She'd heard the news about what happened to other kids when the grown-ups found out about their special powers, and that they were almost always taken away to someplace secret and almost never heard from again.

But most of all, she remembered what happened to Naseem.

Naseem used to be her classmate. She was the daughter of an ambassador for some country in the Middle East, but the three things her classmates always seemed to care about was that she looked very different from the mostly American kids; she struggled with English despite her heritage; and that she was very, very, _very_ smart, capable of passing every test, but since she always refused to tutor anyone or help them with their homework, she be bullied twice as hard, both as a “nerd” and as a “jerk.”

Then Mrs. Woodrow discovered her powers.

It turned out that Naseem wasn't _studying_ hard, so much as she was hard at work reading her classmates' minds and that of the teachers' and proctors' in search of the answers. Mrs. Woodrow had her suspicions and set up a trap, putting in a question that was in none of the books and lectures, and was actually a question only she could have known the answer to. Having gotten a little _too_ comfortable with her powers, Naseem blindly answered the trap and passed her paper with no idea what was in store for her.

Naseem tried to fight back. She had learned a number of dirty secrets from everyone that she used at her leisure to keep them under control, and tried to blackmail Mrs. Woodrow, tell everyone and her husband that she and Ms. Langley weren't just good friends who went on frequent trips out of town on the weekends.

But it turns out Mrs. Woodrow was more of a hero than Naseem anticipated, and happily faced disgrace and social exile if it meant that she could be exposed as the budding villain that she was. (Besides, she wasn't that bothered by becoming Ms. Slaughter again. “I should have divorced him years ago,” she told the press, before she happily drove out of town in Ms. Langley's car for the last time.)

Evie and the rest of their classmates watched as Naseem was taken away by the grown ups from the government, her screams and her struggling burned into their minds, first spilling the dirty secrets of everyone in the whole town, then screaming about what she'd do to all the government's precious secrets, before finally, she broke down crying and begged to stay.

“Don't take me away!” She screamed. “Don't take me awa--!”

She never got to finish the sentence as they slammed the doors on her, before driving away and leaving the schoolteachers to herd the kids back into the classrooms and answer the uncomfortable questions as best as they could.

After that, she learned how to use her powers more subtly, sometimes not even use them and still get what she wanted. She guessed she was lucky that she was born beautiful, and that her mother had been so insistent on making her radiant and stunning at all times; unfair as she did think it was that people treated her better simply because she looked great, she didn't protest when it helped give her _quite_ a lot of much needed leverage.

She learned how to manipulate people with her words and her actions. She learned how to read people, mimic their movements and subconsciously gain their trust, learn what signals to look out for when she was getting hotter or colder. She learned how to get into people's minds, and manipulate their thoughts to her favour without them ever noticing.

And then she learned how to use her powers, just for a little extra insurance.

She was never as evil as Naseem was with her powers. She was guilty of using it to bump her grade up, but no more guilty than every other pretty girl in school who had sweet talked the various instructors into adding a plus or an extra line to their grade. She was guilty of using it to get boys to break up with her, but that was when she was pretty sure she had made a _huge_ mistake, or they weren't as compatible as they thought, and she always helped them move on through the heartbreak, and had them refocus all that energy into getting back into the dating pool than moping about in heartbreak. She was guilty of subtly using all of her techniques—both the ones anyone could use, and her special powers—to make herself the most popular girl in school and have pretty much _everyone_ love her, but could you really blame her?

The world made it so good to be beautiful, popular, and loved, and who was she to deny herself such a huge advantage?

She had a life that was set for fame and fortune, even without her powers. Super model, businesswoman, negotiator, PR person, therapist—the list was endless, she could have been anyone she wanted, and no one was going to convince her otherwise. And if they did try to say “No” to her, she could always change their minds—forcefully, if needed.

And then Sky High happened.

She wasn't sure how they found out. She was pretty sure that the government did in fact have bugs everywhere, spies, and robots disguised as kids and everyday people but were actually radars that detected strange activity that could only be explained by superpowers. And she was certain that the people that took the kids away only ever did it for those that were causing trouble—it wasn't that they _had_ the powers, it was because they were misusing their powers too much.

She stepped out of the balcony of her bedroom and stared at the flying bus as it landed on the street in front of their building. One room across her, her mother did the same from the balcony in her bedroom. They turned to each other, Evie's face falling in mute horror, her mother's in confusion while it was covered in a mask sans the cucumber slices.

“Evie, darling!” Her mother cried. “What in the _world_ is this bus, and who _are_ these people?!”

Evie had never packed so quick in her entire life. She had to thank her mother for being so insistent on her seeing the world before she was ten—it meant that her suitcases were on-hand, she knew exactly what to pack, and she knew exactly how to pack them in properly. Her mother banged on the door and shouted at her from behind it—she had had the foresight to lock it and buy her some time to fabricate the cover story.

She put on her best, most radiant smile as she finally threw open her bedroom door. Her mother was not as amused.

“Evie, you will tell me _why_ there is a flying bus parked in front of our building, _why_ you had locked your bedroom door and refused to answer me until now, and _why_ you are wearing that dress with those shoes _right this instant!”_ Her mother yelled.

Evie kept on smiling. “It's the bus that's taking me to my new school! Don't you remember, mother?” She asked sweetly.

Her mother scowled, which was a bad sign—it meant that she was angry enough to risk wrinkles, and it took a _lot_ for her to risk wrinkles. “No, in fact, I do not!”

Evie put on a pained look. “Oh, mother, it was just last night—it was so late, you were so tired from work, and I sprang it on you so suddenly, there was just so much for you to process all at once!” She put on the puppy dog eyes and concentrated as hard as she could on her mother's own.

She opened her mouth to shout and call her out on her lies. Then, slowly, painfully slowly, she started to relax. “Ah, yes… I… I… I remember now...” She muttered.

“I told you I had these powers, mother—powers no one else had, the power to control people's minds.” Evie said before her mother's brain could connect the _actual_ dots. “Again, I'm so sorry I had to hide it from you, mother, but I was just so afraid of what was going to happen if I let even one other person learn about it! Oh, I should have known I could trust you—there was a very good reason I never used my powers on you once!”

(She had, actually. Many, _many_ , _**many**_ times.)

Evie started tearing up, and her mother's expression softened even more. She took the opportunity to concoct a heartrending story of confessions, outrage, and finally acceptance that was moving and completely, absolutely _not_ true—not to mention outright impossible, given how much physical affection her mother was willing to give her that wasn't fixing her hair, applying make-up, or correcting her posture.

In less than a minute, she had her mother completely convinced of the heart-to-heart that never was. She sniffed and wiped away her tears. “Yes, I remember everything now, thank you, Evie.” Her mother said. “You go off to your special school, and become the greatest superhero they've ever known, now!”

Evie gave her a quick hug. “I will, mother!” She said before she let go just as fast, grabbed her bags, and rushed out of her room and down the hall.

“Oh, and Evie, one more thing!” Her mother cried.

Evie turned around. “Yes…?” She asked.

“You _really_ should change, that outfit is _really_ not working out for you.” Her mother replied as she made her way back to her bedroom.

Evie hid the pain that threatened to show on her face, as she always did. “I don't think there's enough time, mother, but I appreciate the thought!” She replied before she headed out their front door and rushed down the steps.

The bus driver grinned at her as he opened the doors. “ _Smooth,_ kid—mind control?”

“Yes.” Evie said as she stepped up and looked at the seats—all of the great spots were taken, and they were all almost entirely filled. Seems she was one of the last stops of that batch.

“Better find a seat soon, kid,” the driver said as he shut the doors. “Ain't no way you're changing my mind about keeping on schedule.”

Evie decided not to take him up on that or correct his English. She shuffled down the aisle and looked for a seat. Popular girls like her had already settled in with their fellow popular girls and unanimously decided she was too pretty and a threat to them, and thus, they unanimously decided to shun her. A quiet girl in a hoodie took one look at her and immediately formed a shadow copy of herself to occupy the empty seat next to her. The other students didn't have as much problem with her, except for the fact that someone was already beside them.

“Hey! Over here!”

Evie spotted a hand peeking out from above the heads of other, taller students. She ran as quickly as she could in her shoes, and found a boy with a shock of white curly hair standing up on the window seat and the space behind him free. She quickly realized his feet were on the cushions for two reasons: one, he was rather short and extremely young relative to everyone else, and two, there was a whole mess of boxes occupying the space that should have been for his legs, and many more peeked out from under his seat.

“Thank you!” Evie said before she slipped into the seat and slid her suitcases and bags in with her.

The boy lowered himself back down on his seat, knees almost curled up to his chest and his feet planted on the top of one of his boxes. “Name's Carlos!” He said as he offered his hand.

“Evie.” Evie replied with a smile as she shook his. She couldn't help but notice his grip was rather weak and his shake incredibly reluctant.

“So, I heard you have mind control powers?” He asked.

“Well, I could just be really good at convincing people,” Evie joked.

Carlos smiled. “Well, can you convince me not to be terrified of flying? I'm probably going to need it in the next five seconds with how this guy drives.”

“Oh, it can't be _that_ bad, can it?” Evie asked.

Immediately afterward, she was slammed into the back of her seat, intense pressure pushing down on her and her lungs, before it suddenly disappeared and she and most everyone else in the bus let out the bloodcurdling screams that had been held back till then.

The bus driver shook his head as he calmly piloted his bus through the air and around birds and commercial jets. “First years...” He mumbled.


	2. Chapter 2

“Woah.” was all Carlos said when he first saw the campus, and that was all Evie could think to describe it, too.

She'd been around the world, and seen almost all the sights, but none of them could compare to the flying island that was Sky High. Other students quickly looked out their own windows or tried to see past the others to get a glimpse.

“Hold your horses, kids, you can look at it all you want _after_ we land.” The bus driver said.

All of the students quickly returned to their seats and strapped themselves back in. Carlos held onto the topmost boxes on his pile, while Evie clutched the bag full of her fragile valuables to her chest. None of them need have worried, as the bus's final landing was far smoother than any of its takeoffs, flights, or other landings had been.

“Welcome to Sky High, folks,” said a boy waiting for them as they got off the bus. “Feel free to get your bearings first, but make sure to head to the gym in ten minutes,” his clone said as he handed out pamphlets and booklets. “All newcomers have to go to Power Placement and be sorted,” the third him explained as he took bags and boxes and handed them off to their friend.

“No worries, though,” said the girl in the giant robot suit as she loaded the luggage onto her back. “Hero support can _always_ graduate to full on heroes, if you try hard enough.”

Students quickly spread out and started exploring the campus. They watched as students and staff roamed the grounds, helping out newcomers or giving them tours of the facilities and places to see, or consulting the “Almost-All-Knowing Al,” a middle-aged man whose brain could access the internet and most every network in the whole world at will. The giant banner saying “Welcome, Freshmen!” fell off on one side before a student quickly stretched their body up several stories up into the air, hooked it back into place, and went on walking as if nothing happened. On one side of the front lawn, science heroes and hero support tested out their bots, rayguns, and inventions on each other and their superpowered fellows.

“It's even better than I'd ever dreamed...” Carlos said as he wandered around the campus in a daze.

“You knew about this place for a while?” Evie asked as she followed him.

“Yep! Super brain, little to no parental supervision, and access to a computer and the internet helped me learn all about the superhero/supervillain business, Sky High especially.”

“Man, your parents must have _flipped_ when you told them you were enrolling here.”

The smile on Carlos' face disappeared. “Yeah… my mom doesn't really know this is where I am right now.” He smiled. “Doesn't matter, though: I'm on a full super scholarship here!”

“Lucky you! The bus just showed up at my building today, and I'm not sure who exactly is paying for my tuition here, if someone is at all. Worst comes to worst, I guess I can mind control my mom to get her to sign the checks.”

Carlos chuckled. “Guess we've both got more in common than we thought. Hey, quick question: you think I'm going to be hero?”

Before Evie could answer, the water balloons started raining down on them.

A few unlucky students got soaked. The rest screamed and scattered for cover. The science students calmly went on with their experiments, having already put up a protective barrier between them and the rest of the campus.

“Welcome to Sky High, freshies!” A girl cried from the roof of the main building as she manned a slingshot. She and her two friends laughed, one of them using her water manipulation powers to fill up the balloons, the other using her super-fast hands to tie them up at record speed, before they were loaded up and fired.

“Oh no, not again!” The boy and his clones cried before they scattered to herd students to safety.

“Get behind me!” The girl in the robot suit cried as she ran towards the open space in the center, her armour projecting a massive wall of energy.

Those that hadn't already found cover rushed and cowered behind the girl in the robot suit. Already beaten to every single shelter nearby, Evie and Carlos found themselves easy, open targets for the pranksters' wrath. Carlos grabbed Evie's wrist and pulled her away just in time for the first salvo to miss them by a few inches.

“Mind control them!” He yelled. “Make them stop firing at us! Or make them shoot at each other, that'd be funnier!”

“I can't!” Evie yelled as she ducked her head, a balloon missing her by a foot. “My powers don't work at this distance!”

“ _Then run faster!_ ” Carlos cried as he tugged her arm. In shoes that _definitely_ weren't made for running, Evie tripped and fell on the grass. He double-backed to help her up, just in time for the both of them to see a water balloon screaming right at them.

Evie closed her eyes.

The splash never came.

She opened her eyes again and found the water balloon hovering just inches in front of her face, before it suddenly rocketed straight back where it came from. The trio manning the water balloon crossbow ducked as it sailed over their heads. Every eye in the area was suddenly on the girl standing just behind Evie and Carlos, an unamused look on her face framed by long purple hair, and a furious green glow in her eyes.

“This wasn't funny the first time you did this, you know!” She yelled.

The trio on the roof scowled at her, prepared another batch of shots, and fired back.

The purple haired girl calmly stepped around Evie, every water balloon sent her way stopping just short before it hovered off to the side. Undeterred, the trio kept on firing, every single shot only adding to the growing wall of water balloons at the purple haired girl's command.

Finally, they ran out of shots, and stared at their opponent wielding a good two dozen or so water balloons in mid-air. They ducked and screamed as every single one of those balloons came rocketing back towards them.

Every single one of them missed, zooming by just a few feet above their heads and the low wall of the roof. Their leader warily poked her head out of cover and stuck her tongue out at her. “Hah! You missed us!” She yelled.

One of her friends poked her on the shoulder, while the other pointed up. She looked up to see all of those water balloons hovering right over their heads, every singe one of them joined into one giant water balloon.

It was at that moment that the purple haired girl finally let them go.

The mass of balloons exploded in a mighty, freezing cold deluge, the pranksters screamed, the other students cheered. Still on the ground, Evie watched as her saviour closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Ugh… damn senior pranks...” She mumbled. “Hey, you guys okay?” She asked as she opened her eyes again.

Carlos and Evie stared at her. “That was _awesome!”_ Carlos cried as he ran up to her, Evie temporarily forgotten. “Telekinesis at long-distance, fine control and handling of multiple objects at once—ugh, you have _got_ to let me measure your power levels, and run tests! I can totally find ways to make you even _more_ awesome!”

“Maybe later, kid,” Mal said as she looked at Evie. “Can you stand up?” She asked with a worried look.

Evie winced as she pulled herself off the grass. Carlos rushed back to her and helped her up. “Yeah… I'm good; I think I just  tripped, it's nothing .” She smiled. “Thanks for the save.”

Her saviour blushed. “Hey, it's what heroes do and all that jazz. Besides, I couldn't let those jerks get away with soaking someone else...”

A tall, muscular boy suddenly appeared out of nowhere with a flash of orange red light. He casually hooked his arm around the purple haired girl's shoulders before he smoothly landed on the ground with both feet. “Yeah, they got Mal _good_ yesterday; probably didn't help that she had to stop and process what just happened before she ran for cover.”

Mal  glared at him. “And it  _also_ probably didn't help that you just teleported away without me!”

Her friend laughed. “Hey, you know I don't have enough juice in me to get us both that far just like that, I was just watching out for the both of us!”

Mal rolled her eyes. _“Sure_ you were...”

Carlos gawked at the both of them, his eyes wide and his hands shaking with excitement in front of him. “Telekinesis, teleportation—can I get both you guys in my lab? Once I get it set up, anyway. I'm Carlos, by the way!” He held out his hand s to the both of them.

Mal  and her friend shared looks. She shrugged,  and  took Carlos' hand. “ Mal.” She said.

Her  friend followed suit. “ Jay.” He said.

“And I'm Evie.” Evie said as she put her own hand into the mix.

Jay happily shook  it, while Mal just  stared at her . He casually jabbed her in the ribs before she finally took  Evie's  hand and shook it.  She  had to notice that while Jay's was strong and confident, Mal's was pretty nervous  and weak—a little sweaty, too.

“Let me just get your numbers here on my--” Carlos reached into his front pocket, and found nothing. “… phone…” He frowned. “Oh, man, I think I lost it!”

M al's eyes wandered over to Jay. He kept on looking exactly as he did earlier, no hint of suspicion or guilt whatsoever. Evie quickly focused on his head, silently delving into his mind.

Early on, she found she could read people's minds to a certain extent—usually, however, she would have to have had a strong suspicion about a truth they were hiding, or she needed to know it beforehand; she also ran the risk of accidentally made them believe that something was real when they really weren't.

As she explored Jay's mind, however, she quickly found what she was looking for.

Jay yelped as his hand suddenly flew into his own pockets. Evie watched with satisfaction as he pulled out Carlos phone and offered it back to him, all with a distressed and panicked look on his face as he realized he wasn't in control of his arm anymore.

Carlos glared  at him before he took his phone back. Mal smirked at him, before giving Evie a thumbs up. Jay  sheepishly smiled at Evie and offered an apologetic look at Carlos.

“So, mind controller, huh?” Jay asked carefully.

“Yep!” Carlos said as he triumphantly unlocked his phone. “Now, your numbers?”

T he two of them shared them. Then, she reluctantly posed for a profile picture, while Jay was all too happy to show off his good side and get it on digital. “ I'll text you two as soon as I get my lab set up—it's gonna be  _sweet_ !” Carlos said as he slipped his phone back into his pocket and protectively covered it with his hand.

“Speaking of which: you two better get your butts to the gym, look.” Mal said as she pointed to the distance. There was a long line of students being herded into the gym with a mix of students, superpowers, and high tech robots and mecha-suits.

“Good luck with Power Placement! If you ever end up as hero support, Mal here could always use a sidekick, especially a hot girl like Evie.”

Mal blushed and elbowed Jay in the ribs. He teleported away just before she could hit him, and went off laughing a safe distance away. She groaned, and turned to Evie. “Don't mind him, he's just being stupid...” She grumbled.

“We'll keep the offer in mind anyway—I'd think you'd make a great hero to work for, anyway.” Evie smiled and winked before she left for the gym.

Carlos chuckled as he saw Mal quickly turn redder and flustered. He ran off before she could exact her wrath on him and fell in line with Evie. He chuckled again when he noticed her own cheeks were red, too. “Ooh la _la_! Hasn't even been a full day on campus and _already_ you're gearing up for a full-blown superhero romance!” He teased.

Evie laughed and playfully pushed his arm. “Oh, shush, we're not even official superheroes yet...” She said.

As the line started moving faster, conversation quickly turned to what powers their fellow freshmen had, and who was most likely to be declared a full hero.

* * *

Coach Kristoff AKA “Sledge” and his radioactive reindeer sidekick/best friend Sven AKA “Hammer” stood at the raised center platform in the center of the gym. “Alright guys and gals, line up by whoever wants to go first!” Kristoff said as he held up his clipboard. “It's time to show me what you've got.”

A step ladder emerged from the side of the platform. Kristoff and Sven stepped well to the side while the freshmen lined up, the excited and confident ones up front, the nervous and fidgety way at the back.

A girl with a light blue dress, long blonde hair, and a devil horns headband was first, a huge smile on her face as she skipped onto the stage.

“Name?” Kristoff asked.

“Star Butterfly, coach!” She replied with a salute.

“Your powers?”

Star spread out her hands, a glittery rainbow and images of cute woodsy animals sprouting out from it. “I can make optical illusions out of nowhere and recolor things!”

Kristoff nodded and made a note of it. “Anything else…?”

“I can also make super-heated photon beams!” Star replied as her hands exploded into concentrated balls of light, before she raised them up and shot twin bolts of searing hot energy into the ceiling. Two rays of sunshine poured in from the new holes.

Sven looked up and whistled. “Awesome.” Kristoff said as he ticked a box. “Hero. Next!”

Evie confidently stepped up to the platform. Behind her, Carlos gave her a thumbs up and an encouraging smile.

“Name?” Kristoff asked.

“Evie, coach.”

“Your powers?”

“I can control people's minds,” she said casually.

“Oh really? Care to show me?”

Evie concentrated on Kristoff's head. Within moments, he was suddenly doing the chicken dance, a surprised look on his face and Sven laughing at him. “Alright, alright, you've proven it to me!” Kristoff yelled. “Hero! Hero! You can stop now! Seriously!”

Evie chuckled to herself as she let go of her hold on Kristoff and stepped off the platform. Carlos excitedly skipped up to the platform after her.

“Name?” Kristoff asked as he readied his clipboard and ignored Sven's chuckling.

“Carlos de Vil, coach!”

“Your powers?”

“Super intelligence!” He replied proudly.

“Oh, science hero, huh? So, what have you invented?”

“I've created a portable device capable of quantifying, measuring, and figuring out the mechanics of most every type of superhero power with only a 2% margin of error!” He replied.

“Uh huh,” Kristoff replied as he wrote on his clipboard. “Anything other than that? Ray-guns? Giant robot suit? A power core for a robot suit with ray-guns?”

Carlos frowned. A few freshmen in the audience quietly laughed at him. “Uh, I made a generator that can harness the power from dirty laundry AND clean them at the same time!”

“And does this generator power anything that you can use to fight supervillains?”

“… No, it just powers itself.”

Kristoff nodded. “Can you hack stuff?”

Carlos brightened up. “Heck yes I can!”

“Can you hack a giant robot?”

“Pfft!” Carlos waved him off. “That's easy!”

“… While also distracting it and keeping civilians and the city and civilians safe while it rampages through the streets...?” Kristoff added.

Carlos face fell again. “… No.”

“Right, Hero Support. Next!”

Carlos dejectedly stepped off the stage and trudged up next to Evie with his shoulders slumped. She frowned and patted him on the back.

(“Name?”

“Sashi Kobayashi.” The short girl with the glasses said.

“Your powers?”

“I can terrify, stun, or kill people with my eyes.”

“Note to self: get some good sunglasses and never get on your bad side. No need for a demo, you're a hero.”)

Carlos sighed. “Any chance you can brainwash me into feeling better?”

“Let me try...” Evie said as she dove into his mind. She quickly stepped back out as soon as she found herself in a mental landscape several hundred times bigger than any she'd ever seen before, dozens if not thousands of neurons, signals, and thoughts firing all at once and traveling every which way. She swayed and clutched her head as she tried to recover.

Carlos grabbed her and steadied her.

(“Name?”

“GoGo.” The girl with the purple locks and the leather jacket replied.

“Your powers?”

“I can move fast.”

“How fast?”

There was several wooshes of air as a black and purple blur that made its weaved through the crowds of students still waiting in line, before GoGo reappeared on the stage.

“'Very fast'...” Kristoff said out loud as he wrote it down.)

“Woah, Evie, you alright?” Carlos asked.

“Yeah...” Evie mumbled. “Just… wow, there is a lot of brain power inside that little head of yours...”

Carlos sighed. “Figures I'd be immune to your powers...” He said as he shuffled off with his head down.

“Hey, I heard the cafeteria's doing a special on free, scientifically improved ice cream! Made to order, too! Want to go get some?” Evie smiled hopefully.

Carlos looked up. “Do they have rocky road?”

“Let's find out!”

Carlos smiled as the two of them made their way out of the gym.

Little did they know the day's troubles were just getting started.


	3. Chapter 3

The cafeteria's ice cream machine was built almost entirely out of spare parts and random objects, all of them pieced together and made to work by the sentient unicorn-kitten robot “Princess Unikitty.” The whole thing whirred, clicked, and thrummed with all manner of noise and tools as ingredients went in on one end, went through a gauntlet of processing all throughout its length, before coming out the other end and being frozen by one of the counselors, Elsa AKA the “Ice Queen.”

“Hiii!” Unikitty said as she manned the counter and the ingredients end. “Can I get you two some ice cream? We've got some amazing flavours here, like Berry Blast, Fruity Flora Fiesta, and even Super Seafood Medley! Personally, I don't like that last one, but it seems to have a pretty huge following with some of the students!”

“Do you have rocky road?” Evie asked while Carlos stared at the machine as it worked.

“If you mean 'Really Rockin' Rocky Road,' then yes, we do! It's like Rocky Road, only _better_ , with the power of _science_!” Sparkles and glitter rained from Unikitty. “Well, that and Elsa using her super duper superpowers to freeze it to _just_ the right temperature!”

“Two big helpings of 'Really Rockin' Rocky Road,' then!” Evie smiled.

“On the double!” Unikitty said as she pranced off to the tubs of ingredients.

Evie and Carlos slowly made their way down the line as they both watched the machine work, Carlos with far more interest and a lot more excited noises and mental note-taking than Evie. A bicycle chain was put to good use automating a beater to mix up the ingredients, a bellows provided lifting power as tubs of the stuff were rocketed up tubes before dumping over to a waiting slide at the top, and all manner of gears, wheels, and other circular objects from so many different sources powered the conveyor belts and many of the haphazard contraptions.

Finally, the mixed and processed ingredients poured out of one of five nozzles at the end. Elsa calmly held her hand up, frost pouring out from her fingers and freezing the cream, neatly swirling and building up in the cups as ice cream that was just cold enough to stay solid for a while, but not _too_ cold to make your teeth hurt when you bit into it.

“Two big servings of 'Really Rockin' Rocky Road,'” Elsa said as she stuck two spoons in them and handed them over with her other hand and a smile. Evie thanked her and smiled back, Carlos immediately grabbed his and shoveled a huge helping into his mouth.

“Mmff… oh man… so good...” Carlos moaned as he chewed.

Evie laughed. “Never had ice cream like this before?”

“Not ever in my life, actually!” Carlos replied before he finished chewing his current mouthful to shove another one into his mouth.

Evie paused for a moment, before she found the two of them found seats at a free table.

As you would expect from the promise of free ice cream—and very good ice cream, at that—the cafeteria was pretty packed with students, both freshmen and upperclassmen taking advantage of the offer while it lasted. Evie noted with plenty of distaste that many of the tables were separated by the usual cliques, and that quite a few freshmen were getting booted and not so politely asked to find a new seat.

She sighed and dug into her ice cream. Her mood improved dramatically as she finally tasted it—it was hard to be unhappy when you were eating scientifically improved and superpower frozen ice cream, after all.

Someone stepped up to their table and laid down two pamphlets. On the front of it was a grinning face from a particularly handsome boy with perfectly coiffed and gelled brown hair. They looked up and found that same face in person.

“Hello, Chad Charming, hero. I hear one of you got sorted into Hero Support?”

Carlos' face fell once more. He chewed through the rest of his current mouthful without much pleasure.

“Cheer up, buddy,” Chad said, “being a sidekick's not that bad so long as you get a great hero—like, say, _moi._ ”

Evie smiled politely and pushed the pamphlets back. “Uh, yeah, thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty sure my friend here's not going to stay Hero Support for very long.”

Chad smiled like someone dealing with a particularly enthusiastic and ignorant child. _“Yeah,_ while I will admit that some sidekicks do in fact graduate to being heroes themselves, the chances of that happening are _pretty_ slim, so you're statistically better off pledging your allegiance to a great future superhero—such as myself.

He grinned. “Don't worry: I'll always make sure that the press and the media makes sure to mention that I have a sidekick.”

 _Splat_.

Chad flinched, one eye reflexively closed. A cup of half-eaten Sweetheart Strawberry slowly slid down his face and left a messy, creamy pink smear before it fell off to the floor with a dull splat. The cafeteria erupted into scandalized gasps, “Oooohhhh...”'s, and suppressed laughter.

Chad sucked in a breath as he pulled out a monogrammed handkerchief and wiped it off. “Right!” He said, his voice seething. _“Who threw that?_ ”

Across him, several hands pointed at his attacker. Jay tried to grab Mal's arm and teleport them both out of the cafeteria, but she stood up before they could escape attention, and the look on her face made it clear she wasn't moving an inch.

“I did.” Mal said calmly.

Chad scowled. Faster than any human could move, he picked up Carlos' rocky road and threw it at Mal.

_Splat._

Mal flinched as the sizable cup of Really Rockin' Rocky Road splattered on her face. She telekinetically pulled it off, to reveal menacing green eyes surrounded by a thick coating of chocolate ice cream, nuts, and marshmallows.

“ICE CREAM FIGHT!” Someone yelled, and all hell broke loose.

Carlos and Evie grabbed their trays and ducked under the table. Chad started zipping around the cafeteria, stealing ice cream from their owners, while Mal grabbed as many cups as she could with her mind. The two of them wasted no time throwing them at each other, each one missing their target and hitting someone else entirely, or veering wildly off course and splattering on the floor or the walls.

Vengeful students quickly grabbed whatever cups they could and joined in the mess.

“Do something!” Carlos yelled over all the screaming and fighting.

“I can't mind control an entire cafeteria!” Evie yelled back. “My powers aren't _that_ good!”

“Then what are we supposed to do?!” Carlos yelled back.

Before Evie could reply, a massive chill swept through the entire cafeteria, freezing cups in the air and covering most every student that hadn't ducked for cover in a thin layer of immobilizing ice. Evie and Carlos quickly dropped their trays as they become painfully cold, the frozen plastic clattering on the frost now hovering over the floor.

“That's _enough!”_ Elsa yelled as she out into the center of the cafeteria, frost erupting from her fingers and a deep scowl on her face. She spun around to point at Mal and Chad, frozen with a whole bevy of ice cream cups hovering around her and in the crook of one arm, respectively. “You two: in my office, _right now!”_

She turned to the rest of the students. “The rest of you: clean-up duty! And personally apologize to Princess Unikitty for wasting all her hard work like this!” She cast a mournful look at the wasted chocolate and chocolate variants, before personally breaking Mal and Chad out of their icy prisons and dragging them away by their wrists.

The two of them shot each other glares as they struggled to keep up with Elsa.

The rest of the students and the cafeteria quickly thawed out, leaving huge puddles of water all over the floors and uncomfortably cold and wet clothing.

“Welp, free ice cream day's suspended until Elsa gets back!” Unikitty said. “In the meanwhile, if any of you can get me a mop, a bucket, a pasta roller, and some other spare parts, I can build something that'll have this cafeteria cleaned up in a jiffy, AND give you extra credit for Mad Science class! You're on your own with getting dry, though.”

Carlos slowly climbed out of the table. “Well, I need to go scrounge up some parts—later, Eves!” He said, saluting her before he left.

Evie waved back before she looked at her shoes, now soaked with water and uncomfortably squishy and cold. She sighed and climbed out to go join the fast organizing clean-up detail.

* * *

“… _And_ she said she'd love to see me after class if I wanted to talk inventions!” Carlos said as he and Evie walked down the halls, the prototype automatic mopping machine he built obediently following behind them.

Evie smiled. “That's great to hear, Carlos!”

Carlos frowned. “Something the matter, Eves?”

Evie looked down at her shoes, still wet and leaving a water trail on the floor that the machine was mopping up as she made them. “It's dumb, don't worry about it.”

Carlos looked down. “You really like those shoes, huh?”

“Yeah, I do; they're Marikina original. I found them in a little shop while I was on a trip to the Philippines, and I just _had_ to have them.”

“You traveled a lot, huh?”

“Mhmm!” Evie replied. “My mother was really insistent I get as many multi-cultural experiences as she could squeeze into her schedule—it helps that she was usually there to get the both of us all sorts of treatments, or beauty products straight from the source.

“Did _you_ ever travel?”

Carlos winced. “Yeah, no… my mom, was, uh, really insistent on just keeping me around the house.”

“Couldn't bear the thought of her little boy going out in the big wide world?” Evie asked, smiling.

“More like she needed me to do all the chores and keep the place running for her...” Carlos mumbled. “That's all in the past though—now I'm here in Sky High, and everything's on the up and up! Get it?” He smiled.

Evie laughed. The two of them paused as they reached the intersection between the girl's and boy's dorms; superpowers and super-geniuses of both genders had only made the administration more insistent that living arrangements stay segregated, it seemed.

“Welp, I'll see you later, Eves!” Carlos said. “Gotta go set up my lab and establish the ground rules for whoever my new roomie is going to be.”

“Good luck with that!” Evie replied.

“Oh, and Eves?”

“Yes?”

Carlos gave her a quick hug, before turning around and excitedly dashing down the boy's halls. Evie blinked, and watched him go with a smile. She looked back at the papers in her hand and went off to look for wherever her dorm room was going to be, the cleaner bot obediently following after her.

* * *

Sky High's dorms were very bare bones—probably as a consequence of having students that could very easily destroy the furniture by accident with superpowered mishaps, and the frequent need for repairs and replacements for the structures and the facilities all throughout campus.

There were two beds, two desks, one large closet with two distinct halves, and an obvious yellow line straight down the middle clearly designating whose space was whose, alongside a rectangle declaring the space in front of the one bathroom “communal ground.” Evie smiled; it seemed that territorial disputes were best solved before superpowers came into the argument.

Her luggage had already been neatly deposited by the closet, suitcases neatly stacked up and the bag of fragile items laid on top of her bed. She hummed as she double checked everything, finding all of the things she had packed, and absolutely none of them damaged.

She couldn't help but look across the room and see her future roommate's bags—or rather, bag. It was a simple, ratty backpack, once a vibrant purple but time had faded out the colours, and there were a number of tears that had been stitched up with black thread or patches salvaged from all manner of sources, mostly denim jeans. She wondered if her roomie was having more of their things sent up later in the semester, because that probably couldn't have contained _nearly_ enough clothes to vary it up during day to day classes, let alone parties and formal events.

She slipped out of her water-ruined shoes and set them aside to dry. _'I'll offer to go shopping with them, and if they refuse, well, then it's not really my problem anymore.'_ Evie thought to herself as she opened her side of the closet and prepared to stuff her suitcases.

The door opened. She looked up to greet her, before she stepped dead in her tracks.

“Huh. Did you happen to brainwash anyone in admin to get us lumped together?” Mal said with a smile.

“I haven't been here since today, so no.” Evie replied as she smiled back. “How was your trip to Ms. Elsa's office?”

Mal groaned. “Ugh, don't remind me: she gave us both this speech about how we should learn to control our powers and 'be considerate about the effects it has on others' which was all fine and dandy, but then she had to go and get us to apologize to each other.” She said as she stepped in. “Turns out he's not just a smug jerk, he's _also_ a dense, smug jerk, and a total jock—in the _bad_ sense of the word.

“Superpowers—some people just let it all go to their heads.” Mal said as she let herself fall back on her bed with a whumph. “It's even worse if they were already privileged and spoiled before that...”

Evie nodded in sympathy. “Sounds like a really bad trip.” She said as she started putting some things into her closet.

“You have no idea...” Mal grumbled. “Speaking of which: you got mind control powers, right?” She asked as she pushed herself up.

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Mind if you use them on me? I've always wanted to know if someone can break into my mind.” Mal smiled.

“After I finish packing all my things.” Evie replied as she stared at the limited space and wondered how best to use it.

Mal chuckled. “Stand back and watch.”

Evie did. All of her clothes suddenly floated out of her bags in batches, suspended in mid-air before they were all stuffed into the closet, wrinkle-free and neatly organized. The cabinet door to the side of her flew open, and in went Mal's ratty backpack with a whumph.

She unzipped it and out flew an old, worn baseball, rocketing through the air and into Mal's hands. “Piece of cake.” She said.

Evie clapped her hands and smiled at her. “Impressive!”

Mal bowed. “Yeah, I had a lot of practice. You probably had a lot of it too—getting your whole town down on one knee in front of you and doing your every last command, I figure?”

Evie chuckled and waved her off. “I never abused my powers _that_ much!”

“Really? 'Cause if I had your powers, I'd make myself queen of the universe.”

“Yeah, well I watched Spiderman,” Evie replied. “Besides, I know what happens to the kids that _do_ try and fail...”

Mal's smile disappeared. “… Right. Anyway, you said you were going to try to break into my mind now?”

“Anything you want me to force you to do to prove that I have?” Evie asked back as she stepped over to Mal's side.

“Your choice, princess—it's better if I don't know what to expect.” Mal said.

Evie sat down beside her and thought what she could make Mal do to prove that she had lost control. Her mind went through the usual options—the Chicken Dance was always good fun, as was forcing her to say a stupid non sequitur like a puppet that had lost control of its mouth, and there was always forcing her to slap herself. Then it went to the more interesting options. She remembered how she'd blushed when she complimented her, should she force her to do something that'd make her turn even redder? Something that'd embarrass her so badly neither of them could ever forget it and she could hold it over her head like a threat for a good long time?

Maybe have her lean in and kiss her…?

In the end, Evie decided Mal was still her roommate, she'd have to live with her, and she wasn't _that_ evil.

She decided getting Mal to make scrunched up, silly faces would be enough—it'd be fun to see those green eyes of eyes of hers going every which way. She looked into them, and started concentrating. Across her, Mal did the same.

Evie got in no problem—she was idly thinking of what stupid looks she'd have Mal pull when she suddenly hit a wall. _'No problem,'_ she thought to herself, _'I've hit walls before, just find a different direction.'_ Inside Mal's head, she turned and went forward once more.

Again, she hit a wall.

She turned, moved forward, and hit one again, and again, and again, until she realized: she was trapped, like walking inside a cell with four walls and no door.

Evie's physical self frowned. _'Alright, you want to play hard ball, let's play hard ball.'_ She thought as she rammed into one of the walls with more force.

She'd encountered “mental blocks” before. People ignoring her completely, or way too focused in something that was more engaging than a mere distraction, but she had always broken them down or slipped in through the cracks. All she needed to do was… keep… at… it… and--

“Woah!” Mal cried.

Evie broke through, the walls disappearing—but then, instead of the calm, detached feeling she always got when she delved deeper into someone's mind, there was only _pain_.

“Evie, stop! _Stop!_ _”_

“Huh…?” Evie mumbled. She felt a cloth pressed up to her nose before someone pulled her head down.

“Just relax, and don't you tilt your head back...” Mal said as she pinched Evie's nose, stopping the flow of blood.

Still in a daze and not yet totally back in her own head, Evie couldn't protest.

“Geeze, E, I'm sorry, I didn't know...” Mal said.

“I didn't know either,” Evie wanted to say.


	4. Chapter 4

“So how did it feel like?” Carlos asked as he sat at his new desk, a cobbled together desktop humming and beeping on top of it.

Evie sighed as she sat in the chair next to him. “Like being trapped in a jail cell with no escape. I got inside, yeah, but as soon as I tried to get in deeper, I just… couldn't. Just go about in that one, tiny space, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't break through and get to the rest of her.”

“Was there any repelling force, like an electric fence, maybe a rubber band? Or was it just completely solid, like it wouldn't move?”

“Solid.” Evie replied. “Wouldn't budge an inch. Like I was trying to break down one of the walls of Fort Knox.”

“Hmm… this could be a case of mental compartmentalization, as experienced by a mind controller. She might be very used to retreating into her brain and shutting off everything that might be able to cause her distress, giving her a learned protection to your powers.”

Evie nodded. “It's weird because she's not the first person I've seen like that, but she _is_ the first person where I couldn't get through.”

Carlos made a note of it, fingers noisily typing on his keyboard. “Her telekinesis might be giving her brain an added innate resistance to your abilities.”

“Or you could be just too distracted by her to concentrate properly,” Jay mused as he lounged on his bed.

Carlos and Evie turned to him. “What?” They both asked.

Jay grinned. “I've seen the way you look at her, how you act around her, how you talk around her, and I have made my diagnosis: you are really gay for Mal.”

Evie blushed, her mouth opening in protest but no words coming out.

Carlos nodded and made note of it. “Hmm… makes sense! You're still only capable of processing so many things at once, so even if you're distracted even the slightest bit, it'd seriously hinder your ability to pass through strong mental defenses—Mal especially.”

Evie reflexively wanted to snap back that she most definitely did not have that kind of interest in Mal. But then, she thought of how she briefly thought of forcing Mal to kiss her, and it made her blush and her heart beat just a little bit faster.

Jay teleported over to them, peering at Evie with a thoughtful, serious face. “Told ya!” He said as he pulled away, smiling. “Welp, my job here is done, time for me to bid you all farewell and remain vigilant for when I am needed once more!”

_WHAM!_

Jay teleported straight into the wall, before falling back on his bed with a dull thump. Evie and Carlos laughed while he groaned and picked himself up. “Did you just make me teleport straight into a wall?” He asked.

Evie grinned evilly. “Maybe. Care to try that again just to make sure?”

Carlos chuckled. “It's not scientific unless you can duplicate the results, you know.”

Jay frowned, and quickly went back to lounging on his bed, this time keenly avoiding making eye contact with Evie.

Carlos sighed in relief. “Man, I am _so_ glad I am immune to your powers.”

“It's really more that I haven't figured out how to manipulate that super brain of yours yet,” Evie said calmly.

Carlos stopped.

“So, you were saying something about getting me in for testing?” Evie asked.

“Right!” Carlos said, quickly forgetting about what just happened. “I've been thinking about how your powers might work given all that you've told me, and I'm pretty sure that you're somehow able to remotely project your consciousness into another person's mind and manipulate the electrical impulses traveling to their neurons!”

“So you mean to say I'm rewiring people's brains with my mind?” Evie asked.

“Exactly!” Carlos clapped his hands. _“Man,_ it feels so good not to have to translate that into layman's terms. Anyway, I'm iffy on how exactly to duplicate your powers or make a control test device seeing as that'd be extremely difficult, not to mention unethical to use on humans, so I devised a perfectly legal test for you and me to measure your powers, then figure out how to make you _stronger_!”

Evie watched as Carlos pulled out what looked like a box with a tiny rectangle for a screen and a little wifi antenna grafted onto the side. “What's that?” She asked.

“This is a simple display device, capable of showing up to sixteen characters at once, any combination of the numbers 0-9 and/or the entire English alphabet, A-Z, lowercase or capital. This is a wireless receiver I've hopefully tuned to be able to accept the brainwaves you're projecting into the air—if that's how you're using your powers, anyway.

“I want you to get it to display any word, number combination, or phrase of your choice, using only the power of your mind.”

“Are you sure this'll work?” Evie asked.

“Nope!” Carlos asked. “And if it doesn't, that means one less method to pick and choose from when I figure out how to test your powers next!”

“Awfully optimistic, aren't you?”

Carlos smiled. “Heroes have to be, right?”

Evie smiled back. “Right.”

Carlos fiddled with a camera nearby. “Alright, we're recording. Commencing test one, prototype one of the Brainwave Box. Whenever you're ready, Eves!”

Evie focused on the antenna, and quickly found herself inside the machinery. It was similar to every other brain she had delved in, with nodes, electrical impulses traveling every which way, only much more simple and neatly organized. _'Congratulations, Carlos, you got it right the first time…'_ She thought as she looked for which nodes and impulses were the ones she should have been messing with, manipulating and testing them to see what happened…

Carlos stared at the screen. Suddenly, the screen began to flash, fractured bits of data and error codes flashing through it, until finally a two words came up on the screen, one by one:

“Flurge Burgle”

Evie retreated back into her mind. She looked at the screen and smiled. “Hey! I did it!”

“You did!” Carlos cried excitedly as he held up his hand and they high-fived. “What's 'flurge burgle' mean, anyway?”

“It's just some nonsense from a cartoon I watched when I was a kid.” Evie replied. She paused when she felt something warm running down from her nose.

“Woah!” Carlos said as he grabbed some tissues from a nearby box and plugged up her nose with it. “Okay, yeah, definitely sure you shouldn't be doing any serious mind controlling so soon after you strain yourself...”

Evie pinched her nose. She silently gave Carlos a look that yes, she was definitely sure of that, too. Fortunately, the bleeding wasn't so severe as it was earlier and stopped quickly.

“I'll go design some more tests, help us figure out just what the possibilities are with your powers.” Carlos said as he began dismantling the Brainwave Box. “We already know you can probably control machines and hack stuff with mind, so it's bound to be _pretty_ interesting.”

Evie nodded and got up. “Don't stay up all night working, now!” She said as she made to leave the room.

“Whatever you say, sis,” Carlos said with a playful roll of his eyes.

“I'll teleport him straight to bed if he doesn't!” Jay called after her.

Evie laughed and stepped out to the hall, closing the door after her. She got strange and concerned looks from the bloody tissue up her nose, but she waved them all off; what she really needed to be concerned about was if Mal was still in their room when she got back.

* * *

Mal was, laying back on her bed and busy throwing her baseball up into the air. The ball would reach all the way up into the ceiling, before it got pulled back faster than gravity alone could, stopped an inch away from her nose, and the process repeated itself.

She was mid-pull when Evie stepped back into the room, causing her to lose her concentration and bean herself with her own ball. Evie laughed, while Mal set it aside the old-fashioned way before she sat up on the side of her bed.

“Hey E! How was your emergency trip to your personal super-nerd?”

“Pretty informative! I learned that I can hack things with my mind, and that I really shouldn't use my powers too soon after a nosebleed...” Evie said.

Mal's expression turned worried. Evie waved her off. “It's fine; it wasn't that bad the second time around.” She said as she set herself down on her bed.

Mal frowned. “Don't take it as an excuse to just push yourself; trust me, overexhausting your brain _sucks,_ especially if you've got a mom yelling at you for getting it _only_ after a thousand repetitions every day, never fail.”

Evie stopped to look at her. “Your mom knew about your powers?”

“Even better: she was a super. You might have heard of her before—she went by 'Maleficent' before she retired.”

Evie's eyes widened. “Your mom is _the_ Maleficent?” She said as she quickly sat down on the side of her bed.

“Yep,” Mal replied casually. “My full name's Maleficent Jr., but she says I'm not evil enough for it—never will be, either, so it's Mal until I kick the bucket, I guess.”

“I thought she _died.”_

“Nope—just really good at faking it. It helps that she always had the flair for the dramatic, and that she knew exactly how to hide herself in plain sight as an eccentric billionaire single mom with her one daughter.”

Evie paused, trying to process everything she'd just heard. “Wow, just… wow, I had no idea you were the daughter of one of the biggest supervillains there ever was…”

“Mom figured it might not be good to announce to the world that she was actually alive and that she had me—one of the heroes might go on and kidnap me then raise me to fight for good, not evil.”

Evie nodded. “Must have been a pretty interesting life for your dad.”

“I never knew him,” Mal said flatly. “A walking, talking sperm bank, that's all she really needed him to be, so she shooed him off when she knew she was pregnant. Hell, she might have even killed him, I don't know.”

Oh...” Evie mumbled.

Mal sucked in a deep breath and sighed heavily. “And meanwhile, I'm my mom's second chance.

“She always loved to tell me about all the ways I was being a disappointment and what I did wrong this time, over and over again, never fail. If I ever did anything right, the only thing I'd get out of her was her telling me all the ways I could have done it better. I used to listen in the beginning, but when it turned out that whatever I did, it would _never_ be good enough, I just stopped listening.

“At first, I couldn't shut her off, but eventually, I learned how, and these days”---he snapped her fingers--”I don't hear a single word out of her mouth, nor do I even see her, because I'm safe inside my mom-proof bunker, located in the safe haven that is inside my own brain.

“No one in, no one out, unless I want them to.

“That might have been why you couldn't get me to do whatever it is you wanted me to do. That, and TK training: focus hard on shutting most everything out but whatever you're controlling.”

Evie briefly wondered if she was aware of the other reason Carlos and Jay offered up. She decided not to ask. “Makes a lot of sense, thanks.” She said. “But did you _really_ need to put in all that backstory just to tell me that?” She said jokingly.

Mal smiled. “No, but I figured it might be good if you got to know that about me before you learned from someone else. Seeing as we're going to be living together for the next four years if all goes well, trust is going be a real important thing.

“So, that's my story, what's yours?”

Evie huffed. “It's not as exciting as yours, that's for sure.”

Mal's ball landed in her lap with a soft thump. Evie looked up and saw her smiling at her. “Hey, if it helps, I still want to hear it.” Mal said.

Evie shook her head and tossed her ball back. “Oh, alright...

“My mom was just a normal supermodel who had enough business sense to hire people to manage all of the stupid amounts of dollars she was making while people still wanted her on the runway. Eventually, she got too old, and she was never for designing clothes, so she retired with her billions in investments and money in her accounts.

“She had a one night stand somewhere in the world, and I guess my dad never mentioned that he was a super or one side of my family had the genes for it. I used my powers for the first time when I got my nanny to get me a doughnut instead of carrot sticks, but I never really realized what they were until much later.”

“Just saying, you really could have used those to be queen of the universe, or at least your town.”

Evie smiled. “Spiderman. Besides, I remember what happened to my old classmate, Naseem.”

“Woah. Naseem Alavi? You knew the Codebreaker?”

“Just barely. I thought she was the super smart girl everyone picked on, and she was mean to pretty much _everyone_ , so I just stayed away. And when I saw her getting taken away by the government agents, well… that sticks with you, you know?”

Mal nodded in understanding. “So you never used your powers much?”

Evie laughed. “Oh, no, I used them a _lot._ Just as extra insurance, though. I learned about all the ways you can manipulate people and control their minds the old fashioned way; it helps that I was born pretty and my mother was really keen on keeping me that way.

“I noticed.” Mal said. “I mean, the you being pretty and uh—go on.” She blushed and the ball retreated behind her back and started bobbing up and down out of Evie's sight.

Evie pretended not to notice and hid her smile. “I got a silver tongue, how to gain people's trust, and learned how to lie so quickly and convincingly I left people wondering if _they_ were the ones that had their facts wrong. I didn't use it for much evil, though: just bumping up my grade, making it easy to break up with boys, becoming the most popular girl in school, that kind of stuff.”

“Must have felt good to be queen of the school, at least.”

“It wasn't, actually,” Evie replied. “I knew that most of them just loved me because I was _making_ them love me, and if I ever stopped manipulating them they'd probably find out they'd been fooled and hate every single part of me.”

She sighed. “I guess I was trying to get someone to love me without the need to lie to them, manipulate them, or use my powers on them. You know that old cliché: love me for me, no strings attached...”

“Your mom wasn't about to make it to the Best Parents list either, huh?”

“If you were your mom's second chance, I was my mom's china doll—always had to be perfect, spotless, and smiling for whoever saw me, especially her. That's what she always wants to look like to other people—absolutely perfect, beautiful, not a single care in the world.”

The ball slowly dropped behind Mal and rolled off. A silence fell between them.

Mal sighed. “Man, we are _seriously_ messed up.”

“Pretty much everyone is though; we're just more obvious about it.” Evie replied.

“Yup.” Mal raised her hand. “Here's to us, superpowered children of shitty parents; may we never become like our moms, and be better people that they ever were!” She smiled a little.

Evie smiled a little back and raised her own hand. “Here here!”

They suddenly broke into giggles, laughing so hard that they ended up laying on their beds, staring at the ceiling and clutching their sides.

Evie pushed herself up. “You going to use the bathroom? I need a _long_ shower after this day I've had.”

“Just save some hot water for me.” Mal got up from her bed. “Later, E, I'm heading out to go see how else I can waste time before they start serving dinner.”

Evie nodded and went over to her closet.

“Hey, E?” Mal said as she stood by the door.

Evie paused and looked at her.

Mal smiled. “I really liked this talk we just had.”

Evie smiled back. “I really liked it too.”

Mal left the room, Evie headed inside the bathroom with her towel and a change of clothes.

Both wondered just what exactly the other meant.


	5. Chapter 5

_A few months later..._

Bullets rained down from above.

Jay teleported out of the line of fire, going up fire escapes, the sides of the unfinished buildings around them, or even sailing in mid-air before he blinked out of existence and reappeared closer and closer to their shooters. Carlos was lucky he was piloting bots from the safety of the SWAT line behind them, and that it was perfectly fine for his flying drones to get perforated and shot out of the sky.

Evie and Mal weren't so lucky.

Mal held out her hand, her glove glowing and thrumming as her power channeled into them and a shimmering, almost invisible shield formed in front of her. Bullets stopped dead in the field, suspended in mid-air and lazily floating about, but the shooters kept on firing, and she could only stop so many of them.

“Evie!” She screamed. “Do something!”

Evie put her hands to the sides of her head, her own gloves and her “tiara” humming with power as she looked for a target—the head of one of the shooters peeking out from their cover on the second floor. She concentrated and dove into their brain, forcing electric pulses down different paths, bathing different neurons in the bath of adrenaline their glands were pumping out…

Jay teleported just above them, hanging off the edge the unfinished floor just above them, unseen and hidden from the shooters sight for the moment, his exosuit doing most of the work. He looked at his teammates then at his enemies, looking for a signal to drop into action.

The shooters were all busy reloading when Evie finally set off her trap, and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Mal dropped the wall of bullets she'd been holding up, and prepared to catch another batch. The shooters all aimed at her and started firing again.

… Except for the one at the very end of the line who was aiming at their allies, instead.

Screams erupted from the line as they ducked their heads and swung their guns around. Dust and gravel rained down from the ceiling as bullets tore into the concrete, sailing just over their heads.

“Stop shooting! Stop shooting!” One of them yelled.

“I'M TRYING! _I'M TRYING_ _!”_ The mind controlled shooter screamed as they struggled to regain control of their arms.

Jay teleported down among them. Still confused, they never noticed his fist making its way to their heads until it was already too late. Some of them swung around and blindly open fired at him, but he teleported out of the way just before he could get hit, reappearing behind them or at their flanks with his fists or feet ready to strike.

The shooter Evie had turned into her puppet finally ran out of bullets—and just in time, she was starting to feel the strain, even with her equipment doing most of the work. They wrenched their arms back down, and tried to reload their gun. Jay's fist got to their face first. They hit the ground along with their empty clip.

Mal dropped the second wall of bullet's she'd been holding up. “C'mon!” She yelled as she dashed into the abandoned construction site.

Evie followed suit, along with several new black and white drones flying in, courtesy of Carlos. Jay teleported down from above and joined his teammates. Mal armed herself with a huge chunk of concrete in one hand and several smaller blocks in the other, Evie ducked behind cover, while Jay and the drones prepared to rush into the lines of shooters waiting to gun them down.

They were all firing blanks that'd only sting if they got hit, but the risk of a failing grade was all too real.

Evie focused on the shooters at the very back. Confusion and screaming filled the air as bullets started coming from behind their lines and aimed at them, too. Panicked and disoriented, the lines of gunners fell quickly, some punched out as Jay teleported behind them or came in too close for them to react in time, others conked in the head with concrete debris while their bullets steadily whittled away Mal's makeshift shield, and the rest were scared out of cover or zapped with Carlos' drones' energy bolts.

When every single one of them hit the ground or dropped their guns in surrender, Evie, Jay, and the drones started throwing their guns to Mal; she caught all of them with her powers and disarmed them, clips falling clattering to the ground. Jay scooped up the now useless guns in his arms before he teleported away with them.

Their enemies disarmed and helpless, they all rushed to the room at the far end of the abandoned construction site, to a windowless room with a single heavy metal door and an electronic keypad lock at the front of it.

“I'm gonna teleport inside!” Jay said.

“Wait!” Mal grabbed his arm. “There could be a trap waiting for us. Carlos, can you get the lock from here?”

One of the drones flew up to the keypad, tiny robotic arms falling out with claws, metal prods, wires, and an even smaller camera. It went to town on the lock, trying to hack it apart, but whatever the case was made of was much tougher than its tools.

Mal raised her hand, the drone flew away. “Evie, you're up!” She cried.

Evie stepped forward and put her face right up to the lock, held both of her hands to the sides of her face, and concentrated. She dove into the electronics of the lock, and came up against a wall of scrambled signals and electricity, ones that she knew would bounce her around like mad if they didn't just put her through a world of hurt. Her physical self took a deep breath as she zipped through the encryption and the firewalls, till she made it into the lock's circuitry.

Still, there were security features here, nodes that she shouldn't trigger, alarms waiting to be tripped, certain paths her redirected circuits couldn't take….

Evie started to sweat. “Come on, Evie, I know you can do it...” Mal muttered while they all readied themselves for whatever was inside.

The keypad started beeping, one by one, until finally, it gave a happy chime and the lock disengaged. They all stepped to the side of the door, and Mal pushed it open telekinetically. When nothing exploded or shot back at them, they all rushed in.

It was as tiny, cramped, and dank as you'd expect it to be from the outside, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling made of bare concrete. Their hostage sat in a plastic chair at the far end, tied up and gagged. Jay teleported over to them to free them, but they started panicking, making frantic noises and violently squirming in their bonds.

Jay untied their gag. “There's a bomb under this chair!” The hostage screamed.

All four of them paled, before the their expressions hardened. Evie ducked down to the floor while Mal and Jay lifted their hostage's legs up for them. “It's hot wired to their seat,” she said, “we take the hostage off before defusing the bomb—boom.”

“How much time?” Mal asked.

“Less than a minute...” Evie said as she climbed back out.

“Carlos?” Mal asked calmly.

“Already on it.” Carlos said as a flew down to the floor and squeezed itself under the plastic chair. He managed to pry off the cover of the bomb, but there was still the issue of cutting the right wires, hacking the chip, and stopping the wrong signals from activating.

All the while, the timer kept on counting down, getting closer and closer to zero…

The three heroes on site and the hostage sweated and prayed. Safely behind the SWAT lines, Carlos carefully slid his mouse across his desk while he watched the clippers on screen get around one of the many blue wires…

_Snip._

“AAAGGHHHH!” Jay screamed.

Everyone flinched, before Mal glared at him.

He shrugged. “Sorry, there was a lot of tension there. How much time do we have left?”

Carlos' drone flew out. “O-one-seven!” He sang happily as the drone started bouncing about in the air. “Booyah! Who's awesome? We're awesome.” He said as the tools went back into the body and a robot arm with a plastic hand emerged in their place.

“Aww, couldn't wait till it got down to one second?” Jay joked as he gave Carlos' drone a high five.

“I was thinking we could do that when we've got an actual bomb on our hands,” Carlos replied casually.

“You are absolutely _not_ _doing that_.” Mal snapped as she telekinetically untied their hostage's bindings.

“Oh, man, I hate this job _so_ much...” Their hostage said as they rubbed their sore wrists.

“Hey, at least it's all over, right?” Evie said cheerfully.

“Yeah, after six more teams…” They grumbled as they stepped out of their cell.

Outside, the “terrorists” they had been fighting got up, nursed their bruises, or helped out the ones that had been hit a lot harder than the others. The heroes just smiled at each other and made their way back to the “SWAT” line.

“Great work back there, E,” Mal said as they walked. “The friendly fire ploy worked perfectly.”

“Yeah, it did—I was worried that aiming for the ceiling or just close enough wasn't going to work. Can't use my powers to kill anyone unless it's absolutely necessary, and all that.” Evie relpied. “Besides, _you_ were pretty awesome back there, too you know! How many bullets did you just stop back there? A dozen or three?”

Mal blushed. “Well, yeah, those mental exercises you shared with me really helped—a lot more fun than the ones my mom had me go through, at any rate.”

Jay sighed. “Will you two just furiously make out already?” He said as he casually teleported past the fake police tape.

Mal turned even redder and glared at Jay, while Evie spluttered and blushed, trying to come up with a clever retort and completely, utterly failing.

“If you guys are worried about hiding it, pretty much everyone can see it.” Carlos said as he landed his drones on his table, some helpers on-site dumping the broken ones on his table for him.

“Yup, completely, totally obvious,” Coach Kristoff said as he handed them their assessment sheet—A+ on every criteria. “Even more obvious than Penn and Sashi were, which is _really_ saying something.”

Sven and the other students waiting behind the line echoed the sentiment.

“You guys are all jerks!” Mal cried as she angrily went over the tape and stomped away.

Evie just quietly slipped under the tape and followed her with her head down.

“So, how have those two _not_ gone completely insane?” Kristoff asked as the “terrorists” and the new team of heroes went to their places.

Jay shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Could be all mental training; they could probably ignore the end of the world as we know it happening right around them if they wanted to.” Carlos added.

Kristoff nodded. “Makes sense.” He turned back to the set of the day's round of Save the Civilians. “Alright, get ready everyone: timer starts in three, two, one… go!”

* * *

Mal stripped off her gloves and threw them to the side as soon as they got back into their room. “Ugh, I am so glad that's all over! I swear, Carlos needs to come out with that new version he's been talking about _now,_ or so help me...”

“I think they worked out just fine.” Evie said.

“Well that's because _y_ _ou_ don't have to use them—I don't know what it is about them, but every time I use them they just feel… moist.” Mal and Evie shuddered. “I mean they feel dry, but when start channeling my powers into them, they turn _ugh..._ ”

“At least it isn't as bad as the first prototype for my tiara, right?” Evie said as she carefully set her “crown” down on a mannequin head.

Mal scowled. “Carlos is _really_ lucky it never happened again...” She grumbled.

“They told me you freaked out so badly then.” Evie said as she laid her gloves down in front of the mannequin.

“I thought he'd accidentally killed you or turned you into a vegetable, E— _of course_ I'd freak out badly.”

Evie stopped in the middle of putting her second glove down. Mal awkwardly stood behind her as a silence fell over them.

“… So, uh, anyway, you've been wearing the tiara any time you need to use your powers; you think you can still control someone's mind without it?” Mal asked.

Evie huffed and turned to Mal with an incredulous look. “Uh, duh? I practice all the time! And maybe I'm controlling your mind already, I've just been so incredibly subtle and skilled about it you haven't even noticed.”

Mal smiled. “Or maybe you're just lying through your teeth and you don't want to admit that unlike Carlos, I'm actually _immune_ to your powers.”

“Uh, no you're not,” Evie said coolly, “you're just really hard to break into.”

“So you say after the one and only attempt!”

Evie's lip curled into a half-smile, half-scowl. “Want me to try again?”

Mal smiled as she strode over to Evie's side and sat on the side of her bed. “Tell you what, princess, let me sweeten the deal: I'll make it easy for you to hijack my free will—if you even can. I'm lowering all my defenses, you can reach into my mind uninhibited, and you can make me do whatever it is you want me to do.”

“Are you sure you don't want to tell me exactly what to make you do so you know you've lost all control?” Evie asked as she sat beside her.

“Surprise me!” Mal said before she relaxed, shoulders loose, eyes lazy and unfocused.

Evie stared into them, her own eyes growing intense as she concentrated.

Again, she found herself able to dive as easily into Mal's brain as anyone or anything she'd ever hijacked or hacked, but this time, she found no walls, no barriers when she moved around; true to Mal's words, she had left herself completely defenseless, and Evie was free to do whatever she wanted with her.

The only question was, what?

Her ran mind through the usual options—chicken dance, flurge burgle, make her hit herself—before it remembered the one option so long ago, the one she had briefly entertained just before she ran into Mal's walls for the very first time. She surged all throughout Mal's brain, redirecting impulses to other neurons, stopping others, planting certain suggestions and images into her mind, and forcing some of her glands to start producing certain chemicals...

… Before Mal suddenly surged forward and put her lips on hers, and Evie felt herself get kicked out instantly. Her eyes widened from the whiplash and the kiss, her brain scrambled, fuzzy, and half-and-half in both their minds until Mal held her cheeks and pushed forward just a little more. Then all she could think about was how soft and warm her lips were…

They pulled away blushing bright red and panting for breath, both their expressions a mix of excitement, relief, and disbelief that that had actually just happened.

“Convinced now...?” Evie asked playfully.

Mal chuckled. “It doesn't count if I already wanted to do it in the first place.” She said before she leaned in for another kiss.

* * *

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Evie said as she and Mal stood outside Carlos' and Jay's room.

Mal sighed. “Look, it's going to be pretty obvious once we come into class tomorrow, I'd rather we set the record straight before the rumour mill catches wind of us and pumps _everyone_ all full of crazy ideas. Could you brainwash me into not wanting to punch their teeth when they say inevitably say something stupid, though?”

Evie shook her head sadly. “I think that instinct's too deeply ingrained for me to change, sorry.”

“Eh, it was a worth a shot.” Mal said before she raised a hand and knocked on the door.

Jay answered almost instantly. He opened the door, leaning on the frame and prepared to launch a smart aleck remark, before he noticed the way Mal and Evie were standing together. He teleported out of the way to Carlos' desk, and spun him around to face them.

“Jay, what the--” Carlos cried, before he saw them, too, and laid down the electronics he was working on.

Mal trudged in, Evie followed and quietly shut the door behind her. They looked at Jay and Carlos in turn, before Mal sucked in a huge breath, and sighed.

Evie smiled and held her hand out. Mal blushed and reluctantly took it.

“Me and Evie are dating now.” She said.

The boys raised their arms into the air and cheered, before they started excitedly talking about who owed who money from the school-wide betting pool.

Mal stared at them incredulously, before she sighed and put her palm to her face.

Evie just giggled.

“Could you brainwash me and make me not completely mortified right now?” Mal asked.

“How about I brainwash you and make you completely not embarrassed to kiss me in front of our friends, instead?” Evie offered.

Mal put her hand down and smiled. “I'll take it.”

Evie dove into Mal's mind, Mal pulled her in for a kiss, and neither cared one bit that Carlos and Jay were recording them for proof.


End file.
